Mishaps Like Sinking Ships
by Shel Wilder
Summary: It sounded quieter. Or perhaps peaceful would be found a better word. The experience, so far, turned out to be nice; to return to a place that held such chaos for me as a child and finding it welcoming.
1. Chapter 1

The city hadn't changed much.

It sounded quieter. Or perhaps peaceful would be found a better word. It, so far, turned out to be nice; returning to a place that held such chaos for me as a child and finding it welcoming. Certainly no one recognised me, all the hospitality I found held unfamiliar smiles and eyes which showed no recollection. I didn't have expectations for being noticed. It'd been a long time since I last walked these streets and I have an inkling as if the town gladly forgot about me as soon as I left.

I turned the corner and strolled down a side street, curious to see if a certain shop remained in business. It had been the hang out of people I hadn't the pleasure to truly call friends. I figured it would be unlikely I would even get in, seeing how ill prepared I came to the cafe.

Yet when I arrived at the door, there stood no intimidating bouncer. I quickly took advantage of this opportunity and ushered myself inside, noticing the place happened to be quite busy. The sound of chattering and animals easily became overwhelming, yet I took a seat at the counter nearest the food and tried to ignore all of the noise. A shadow quickly fell over me and I feared the impending potential of being thrown out.

"You have your pet, sir?" A rough voice came out over all the noises of the cafe, and I turned to face the speaker.

"Uh, no, I'm sorry, I'm just visiting from out of town, I haven't-"

"Did you read the sign? All persons must be accompanied by at least one animal."

I frowned at the man, desperately looking around. "I understand, but..."

The bouncer had an obvious intention to continue protesting when a voice cut him off, "It's fine, Calvin, he can stay here this once," The large man regarded me for short while and then stalked off for the door. As he left, I turned to see whom had allowed me the gracious privilege of staying. He looked around my age, maybe a little younger. Hair brown, a tiny bit longer than most haircuts, and a clean goatee on his face. I instantly recognised him, despite the age added, and smiled.

"Thanks," I said, uncertain if I should address him by his name. I didn't want to catch my old schoolmate off guard. Perhaps I would give him a little time to figure out he that, as a matter of fact, I was not a stranger.

"Oh, don't mention it!" He cheered, "Just make sure you make more of an effort to bring along a furry friend if you happen to stop by again. And feel free to sample any of our treats," He motioned towards the bowls on the counter which had labels of their names and included whether or not the treats could be fed to animals. "What brings you to our town?"

I scoffed to myself, "I used to go to school here when I was younger." I asked for a glass of water after that, which he happily obliged.

"Really?" He responded as he passed me my drink.

"Yeah, I went to Bloor's Academy, drama department."

"Oh, wow! Me too, I was in music 'though. It's the Bone Academy now, by the way, under new management," He corrected me, as he began wiping down the counter. "And I'm Gabriel, by the way," He suddenly added, as if he had remembered his name.

I smiled at him, which made him pause curiously. I saw a spark of recognition pass through him as we made eye contact and I brought the drink to my lips, giving a bit of a smile, "Asa," I responded, drinking to keep myself from grinning too widely at his expression.

His eyes grew wide and he gaped at me for a moment. "Oh my gosh!" He exclaimed, looking trapped and unsure how exactly to respond. "Oh my gosh, I should have noticed!" He ran his hand through his bangs, as if grabbing his head in shock. "The yellow eyes-I should have noticed right away!"

Those yellow eyes looked down at the water in my cup as I have a slightly awkward laugh, "Yeah." I couldn't muster a sure way to carry the conversation after the realisation and brought both hands to hold the glass.

"Well, how long are you in town? Does anyone else know?"

"I don't know, indefinitely I suppose. And, I really didn't know how to tell anyone. Or where to find them. I came here on a whim-you took over the Pet's Cafe?" I looked back up, realising that it was quite a possibility. Gabriel loved this place like no one else when we were children; it had always been the perfect place of work for him.

He smiled widely, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah! Mrs and Mr. Onimous handed it down to me and decided to do some traveling. I couldn't be happier here." He appeared to look around, a sort of pride sparkling in his grey eyes and it really showed how utterly blissful he felt running the store.

I smile and nodded, looking back at my drink again. "How are the others? Like Emma, and them," I asked awkwardly keeping my gaze at my drink and following up with a sip.

He gave a laugh, perhaps because I had singled Emma out and I bit my check to help from blushing, "Everyone's been doing great. Charlie's been working at Bone Academy. Olivia's finally got her big break, as we all knew she would. Lysander's also been doing well, but he's moved out of town. And Emma and Tancred are engaged," I looked up for a brief moment and, once more, took a quick gulp of my water to avoid the disappointment in my expression from showing.

"That's good," I breathed as I put the glass down, nodding. "Great to hear everyone's doing good," I turned my glass, afraid to ask about Manfred but being extremely curious. Our friendship had ended horribly, but we had been thick as thieves up until then. There lay a part of me that wished I could come back and make amends with him, holding high hopes that he found himself able to move past all this ridiculous contempt for the "good children."

There came a loud crash followed by a lot of cawing and barking. Gabriel sighed, "Sorry, I really shouldn't be shooting the breeze while I need to work. Stick around and we can catch up when the store closes?" I glanced outside and shrugged.

"Sure. Just not too late." He nodded solemnly then shuffled off and I popped a treat into my mouth.

**a/n**: _weh_ _i might not even continue this. read and review, let me know if you guys think its got potential. _


	2. Chapter 2

I stayed for a little while, not much time passed before the cafe started to get less noisy. Less busy. I would have failed to notice otherwise, but the place grew completely dead within an hour. Gabriel soon appeared behind the counter once more, grinning at me.

"We'll be closing in a few minutes," He advised me as he picked up one of the trays of treats.

I looked outside and then down at my wristwatch. "So soon?" The time read as only a few minutes passed four and the Pet's Cafe always had been opened later than that, as I recalled.

Gabriel put away the tray and then grabbed another, responding, "An old friend's come to visit, I figured it was an occasion that I should take advantage of!" I tried to stifle the smile that crossed my face, especially since he referred to me as a friend. This proved to be the most sincere form of hospitality I'd been offered since my arrival. "I would offer to top off your water, but unfortunately, we're closing!" Gabriel pleasantly exclaimed and I smiled back at him.

"Of course," I answered faintly, offering the cup back to the endowed, greatly touched by his kindness. Had I been like any other person, Gabriel would be able to close the Cafe at the usual hour and still go get to drinks, as I assumed would be the protocol. But how could anyone forget what happened at dusk? I hadn't felt insecure about this for a long time. Living with the tribe made my transformation feel so natural and casual. Returning here brought up all those old disadvantages, the rumours, the hunts. Yet here Gabriel proved to be warm as ever.

"So what do you think?"

Had he been talking me to? "Uhm," I start, drawing a blank. I found myself lost in my thoughts I completely forgot to pay attention-I didn't even realise he began speaking. "I'm sorry, pardon?" I asked, rather abashed from being caught not paying attention.

"Oh, I was saying that you don't think it's too early to get a pint?"

I smirked and stood up, pushing in my chair, "It's never too early."

We hit up a pub nearby and spent awhile drinking and chatting. The drinks here tasted rather watered down to me and I obviously held my alcohol better than Gabriel. Not that he made a mess of himself-but by his last drink he couldn't hide the fact he felt "better" than myself.

"Oh man, you should have been there, it was so great! When Emma realised what was happening, we thought she was going to just fly away from the embarrassment!" Gabriel laughed, as I joined him. I gave a cautious glance outside, biting my lip as I saw the darkening street. Gabriel followed my gaze, "Oh! We should probably get going!" He exclaimed, placing money on the bar, as I nodded in agreement and stood up. Gabriel jumped to his feet, somewhat shakily, and I offered my arms to support him, which he gladly took advantage of.

Gabriel gave a brief stumble, again, as we walked out of the pub and I caught him. "Damn, I didn't intend to drink this much," He claimed, as what I sensed as some sort of apology.

I laughed it off while we started back towards the Pet's Cafe, "You didn't have to keep up with me."

"I wasn't!" Gabriel protested and I laughed. "Whatever!" There came a moment of pause before he spoke, "Hey, if you need a place to stay, my place is CERTAINLY big enough."

"Gabriel..." I awkwardly gave a chuckle. I had arrangements in a motel, however it was really only for a place to put my luggage.

"What?" He barked, "It's not like you're a horrible, rabid animal at night. I run a Pet's Cafe, for Christ's sake, Asa! I can handle a bit of doggy."

I gave another awkward laugh because I couldn't decide on what to do. Gabriel. Being painfully kind to me, I almost felt like I constantly continued to abuse his hospitality. Perhaps I still felt in debt to him and his friends for all they'd done for me and this only deepened my debt. "You're offending me if you said no," Gabriel declared as he took a large step and began to stomp around while walking in front of me.

I opened my mouth to speak yet I couldn't settle on any words and ended up staying quiet.

It didn't take too long for us to return to the Pet's Cafe and Gabriel led me upstairs and showed me around the apartment. What he said had been right, up here alone it was indeed spacious enough for two people to be living. Before, the Onimouses dwelled here, so I supposed it would have been ideal living quarters for them.

"You can stay in this bedroom, if you want," Gabriel told me as he showed me a kempt room, which appeared to serve as a guest bedroom.

"No, you know, I was thinking the couch looked a lot more comfortable," I remarked as I stepped into the room and gave a mock examination of the bed. For a moment Gabriel stood-swaying ever-so-slightly-appearing to try to decode the situation. "I... I'm kidding, thank you, I'll stay here."

"Yeah," He forced a laughed. I sat down on the bed and glanced around the room. No fragile objects lay around I would need to worry about breaking. The psychometric had been correct again, I didn't become out of my mind when I transformed but sometimes I forgot to recalcuate my size change. I didn't want to break any delicate china dolls or something of that nature.

"Oh! I have something to give you," Gabriel suddenly remembered, and nearly tripped as he ran into another room. I waited for a few moments, listening to the sound of drawers open and papers being shoved around. Eventually the endowed returned with a folded sheet of paper. "Here," He handed it to me and I glanced at it for a moment, and then back at him. "I figured... y'know, you would be curious. But I didn't think you'd ask forrit." He knocked his knuckle absently against the door frame while I stared at him curiously, and then added, "I'll let you do your thing."

He turned and I began to open the note, stopped, and called, "Hey, Gabe,"

"Yeah?" Gabriel turned back around, extremely eager, as if he expected me to say something specific.

I absently licked my lips to defuse the tension from not knowing what he wanted to hear, "Thanks, again."

The psychic gave a faint smile and I could tell I hadn't met his expectations. "Don't mention it," he assured me softly and disappeared behind the wall.

Sighing, I looked down at the piece of paper and finally opened it. It appeared to be torn out of some kind of address book. On it, a scribbled address outside of town. The bottom, next to some sort of doodle of an angry face which someone half scratched out, read "MANFRED BLOOR".

My heart sank as I saw the words written and I then began to feel the first tugs of my change.


End file.
